


Exit Wounds

by Ultra



Series: Moments in Time [27]
Category: Leverage
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Eliot Spencer Whump, F/M, Hurt Eliot Spencer, Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-10
Updated: 2012-05-10
Packaged: 2020-03-02 19:29:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 830
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18817504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ultra/pseuds/Ultra
Summary: Eliot provides an exit for the rest of the team, but will it cost him too much?





	Exit Wounds

**Author's Note:**

> originally written for jesco0307 on Livejournal, based on her prompt.

He couldn’t go on like this much longer, the team had to realise that, Eliot was sure, and yet he fought on, he didn’t have a choice. It was his life or theirs, and theirs were worth more to him than anything right now. This wasn’t just his job, it was his reason to live, his family to protect, and so he fought on.

Nate called in his ear but Eliot barely heard as his legs were taken out from under him once again and the concrete floor rushed up to meet his body with a sickening crunch. He was pretty sure Sophie screamed, or maybe it was Parker. Hell, at this point it might just have been Hardison yelling at him to get out already, or sirens screaming, or angels singing. No, the angels wouldn’t be there if this was the end for Eliot Spencer, only the Grim Reaper to take him down where he deserved to go.

He got up. God knows how, but he did, he had to. He thought the others were saying they were out but it just as easily could’ve been garbled panic because they were stuck, because they needed his help.

Eliot fought on, even as a fist broke two more ribs, even as a steel bar struck across his back, even when the blood rained passed his eyes and the world swirled out of focus.

As all the noise began to fade to a dull roar, to just a mindless hum of quiet, he heard Lucille rev into life and knew the team had made it out okay. His work here was done, it didn’t matter what happened next. At last, Eliot let the blackness take him, with a smile on his lips.

* * *

Eliot was never afraid of the dark. His Momma always said that you should appreciate it because without the dark there would be no light to look forward to. He wasn’t so sure he would ever see light again that final time when the blackness fell over his eyes and his body soundlessly hit the ground, at the mercy of his foes. It didn’t matter, the team had been saved, he was sure of it, and yet he could hear them, just vaguely but they were there.

When the end came, Eliot wondered what tortures would await him. He dreaded the images he might see when he opened his eyes, though closed he had seen no nightmares dance behind his lids for a change.

The feeling washing around inside him now was familiar, though it took him a while to place it. Morphine, he soon realised, a motherload of morphine, and somewhere amongst the almost disturbingly floaty feeling, Eliot could make out voices that he fought to reach for, to answer maybe, but he couldn’t do it. It took every ounce of effort just to prise open his eyes, and there they were.

“Eliot!” Parker was tear-stained and yet grinning, the first to notice he was back in the land of the living, and more than willing to throw herself on him, despite his multiple injuries.

It was fine, he didn’t feel much, and honestly, it was a Heaven he never expected as opposed to the Hell he was sure he had been destined for. She was here, they all were, and miracle of miracles, Eliot was too. He made sure of their escape and somehow it seemed they must have made sure of his.

There was chatter going on, he couldn’t make out much, words here and there about the ‘ultimate smack-down’ and ‘Lucille did us proud’. Even through the morphine drip and Parker bouncing around on the bed, he figured it out. When he heard the engine rev, that was the team coming back for him. They had his back in a way he never could’ve or would’ve expected, not because they were bad enough people to forsake him, but that he never considered he was worth that risk.

They must’ve run the assholes down, thrown his own broken body in the back and brought him here to the hospital to recover. Apparently, despite the odds, it seemed as if he was going to recover too. He was going to live on with this team, because they just were not prepared to let him die.

“Don’t ever do that again,” said Parker then, the one voice that was pretty easy to focus on right now since her face was barely an inch from his own. “I don’t want you to die, okay? Not ever.”

Eliot would’ve promised her the world right now if he had the energy to speak at all, just for being here and for caring that much, in a way he never expected anyone to care about him again after all he had done.

When his eyes closed on the world this time, Eliot knew he would be back. He had the best reason in the world to come back for. He was loved.


End file.
